No one saw this murder which was committed on 26 April 1999. The murderer escaped: the firearm he used was never found.

The investigation was complex and difficult.

The Appeal Court after a full review has decided, as the Trial Judge did, that the delay in arresting this Appellant was understandable and that it did not compromise his defence of alibi, nor his case that many witnesses did not identify him on the video parade. The Prosecution did not rely on the delay in any way unfair to the Appellant so as to require the Judge to use his power to rule out the evidence in fact, given to him under his powers to exclude "unfair evidence" (under S.78 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984). There was no abuse of the process of Law.

The complaint by the Appellant about the lurid headlines and numerous photographs with unfortunate comments about the Appellant in sections of the media following the Judge’s lifting of the ban against publication of such material on 28 February 2000 is highly regrettable but it did not in the Court’s view prevent a fair trial. The Trial Judge was not to know at the time of the lifting of the ban that such lack of restraint would be shown.

The Appellant’s main argument was that only clear and unqualified identifications should be permitted in evidence. In this case there are three relevant points:-

1. The gap in time between the murder and the identifications – viz April 1999 to August or October 2000.
2. The Appellant refused to stand on any parade after the first one. The police had to resort to the less satisfactory video "parade" when those in the video-photographs wore beards as the Appellant did late in the year 2000, but did not wear at the time of sightings in 1999.
3. It is conceded by the Defence that one witness did make an unqualified identification from which the jury could conclude he was the murderer.

The Appeal Court rejects the Defence argument.

In addition to the unqualified identification there was a pattern of evidence from some nine witnesses describing a man and describing his actions, which considered as a whole showed a consistency of evidence that there cannot have been two men of that description and behaviour as described in the area local to the Appellant and the victim.

Other evidence supported the Prosecution’s case:

1. The finding of a particle of firearm discharge residue found in the Appellant’s coat, itself unusual in persons not associated with firearms and in the light of most of the residue having gone into the victim’s head, which was consistent with it having come from the firing of the cartridge found at the scene. The Court considers the jury were fully entitled to reject the evidence that the coat had been innocently contaminated and accept contrary evidence that this was not so.
2. The finding of a fibre on the victim consistent with having come from the Appellant’s clothing which, though weak in itself, in association with the other evidence showed a two-way connection by forensic evidence between the Appellant and the victim.
3. The fact that the Appellant was, despite his untrue denials, associated with firearms. For example, the police found a photograph of him in military combat clothing holding a gun not dissimilar from the murder weapon.
4. The fact that the Appellant showed an obsession with Miss Dando and other female television presenters as shown by his collection of photographs and the like found by the police at his home.
5. The lies the Appellant told the police when questioned.
6. The flawed alibi statement by the Appellant from which it could be properly deduced he tried after the murder to say he was at HAFAD or a taxi firm’s offices at the time of the killing.

There was no evidence from the Appellant to contradict or explain any of this evidence or the deductions which could properly be drawn from it.

Circumstantial evidence is not second-class evidence but it requires and has received careful analysis. In this case the whole picture presented by that evidence is, in the opinion of this Court, compelling and the conviction was correct.